Best Pics So Far and People to Be Commended

This blog has the best pics so far of Katrina Animals. It is all pics
http://justthinkingaboutit.blogspot.com/

My little guy --


This is the little lab/mix I tried to get for 2 weeks and finally got him on the 2nd to last day I was in town. He was trapped in his backyard with another dead dog and he was scared to death. This is his vet visit after being rescued (yes we took dogs to vet)

People to Be Commended

I need to give some credit. It is hard to write a blog and not have people assume all kinds of things. First I always had help. In the case of the dog in the drain pipe, that was a group effort with a bunch of great people from Atlanta....Gigi, Russ and others. In fact only one person could get out with the protective suit to get him. There was some small dispute about what to do with him as we were in a motor home and didn't want to contaminate it. I promise you I was ready to spend the night with him (we were miles and miles from areas that had living people). I would have never given him up after he got out of that pipe. Luckily, some guys drove by and I offered them $250 for the use of the truck. I would have paid whatever they wanted. They accepted and then Billy rode in the back of the truck with contaminated dust and contaminated dog. The great people from Atlanta split the $250 with me. Group effort. Here is a list: Lacey, Matt, Susanne, Billy, Kim, Catherine, Molly, Michelle, Jennifer, Fester, Joey, Lisa, Ashleigh, Joey, Camille, Joan, Tom Muller, Laura and many others that just showed up at the Rite Aid and made a difference. (I am forgetting so many, sorry).

A lady name Dorothy at www.dogdetective.com single handedly organized hundreds of volunteers sending them to Lamar, YMCA and Winn Dixie. She is still at it today. If you fill out her form you usually get a call from her in an hour.

Mark and his wife got hundreds of volunteers and supplies to the Winn Dixie. They are still at it today. He on site and his wife on the Internet. This type of operation was repeated in many locals by tenacious people. Mark rescued 16 animals himself yesterday proof of just how much is needed to do yet.

YMCA was set up and successful long before I came along. Gail and Lee and others had been at it for days (sorry names escape me sometimes). I did jump right in. Lee was the one that started feeding all the dogs instead of taking them. He went to many morning HSUS meetings and finally I think they got the idea as they started doing it to. See his interview with Anderson Cooper here on the blog. The feeding and watering in place and on the streets concept saved thousands of animals and was really great for cats who were hard to catch anyway. You can't drive a block anywhere in the city and not see spray painted marking a feeding and watering station. When they all left YMCA to go home I figured that side of town still needed us so we attempted to work at YMCA but it had gotten very dangerous in town by them. We drove out the very first night and found the Rite Aid which was a perfect spot for a small rescue operation. Very nice piece of land at side of Rite Aid and the owner of the Pit Stop bar treated us like gold from day one. I don't mean drinking I mean bathrooms, ice, water, etc. Nobody had time to drink. I didn't have a single beer in the Pit Stop although I had one or two bought from the outside bar. It usually consisted of me drinking ½ a beer and then losing it as we were still working almost all night. One time I took our two cutest dogs to the outside tables and let some cops play with them and recruited volunteers for the next day. It was amazing how many locals wanted to help once they found out what we were doing...Matt and Susanne who lived near the Pit Stop worked with us full time for a week and are still at it. Susanne had already fostered and adopted 4 dogs and 6 cats in her townhouse and Matt fostered several until owners returned.

Quick aside: How do you get Billy to walk and feed all dogs in record time? Tell him when he is done he can go over to the Pit Stop and shoot 2 games of pool.

What I want to make sure is known is that everything done was a team effort all the time. The Rite Aid thing was great because just about the time we got enough good people we got “found” on the Internet so we got call after call after call from owners who sent us to addresses to check on specific pets.

Internet workers were a huge part of success. They have worked for 30 days or more 15 hours a day plus -- finding supplies, and finding owners who needed houses broken into and now they are all working on reunites. There was an army of these people who got me anything I needed. They were the communication. One post a few hours before Rita and we had 6 people offering us places to ride out the storm.

We had 3 vets near the Rite Aid that were on call. Dr. Abadi never turned us away. We just called on our way in from the field and took them right to his place. He charged me but not much. I insisted on giving him more than he wanted to charge so we felt like we could call him anytime we needed. A lady named Eilleen ran electric and water from her house for us and volunteered at camp many days.

All I am saying is when you look at a picture or hear a story know that dozens of people made that pic happen..actually thousands of people. And hundreds of people like me just showed up and started to work.

All people came for the right reasons but It was a tough and emotional environment. I can say that the 12-15 of us in the end at the Rite Aid got along magnificently. I mean it. We just didn't fight or argue hardly ever (notice I say hardly)